Andean spirituality — Inca and indigenous South America

The spiritual tradition of the Andes is inseparable from the land that shaped it — the high mountains, the deep valleys, the sacred lakes, the volcano peaks that are not merely landscape but waka, living sacred presences with their own agency and their own relationship to the human community. The Inca civilization built one of the most sophisticated spiritual systems the ancient world produced, centered on the veneration of Inti the sun god and Pachamama the earth mother, with its ritual calendar governing the life of the entire empire. Many of these practices — the despacho offerings to Pachamama, the ayni principle of sacred reciprocity, the relationship with the Apus (mountain spirits) — survive and are practiced today by Quechua and Aymara communities throughout Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.